Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has spoken out against changing the procedure on EU enlargement that could unblock talks with Ukraine.
“No way… there is a legal, strictly established procedure on how to do this. We have to stick to it. This means unanimous decisions,” the Hungarian prime minister said, commenting on European Council President Antoni Means’ initiative to change the procedure for opening negotiating chapters.
Viktor Orbán repeated his thesis that Ukraine is not a sovereign state.
“We don’t know where the eastern border runs. We don’t know how many people live there. It doesn’t stand on its own feet. If we decide morning or afternoon not to give more money to Ukraine, it will collapse as a state… they don’t have the money to support themselves. We pay for the army, for the state apparatus, for pensions – for everything. If someone else pays you, you are not a sovereign country. This is not a moral statement, but simply a financial fact,” the Hungarian prime minister said.
The official also recalled the national referendum he organised and its results, according to which Hungarians opposed Ukraine’s membership in the EU, and offered a “strategic agreement” with it in return.
“The Hungarian proposal is to have a strategic agreement. Not membership. A strategic deal is a good thing. Ukraine is a heroic country. We should support it-no doubt about it. The question is the form of how we will do it. Membership is too much. We only need a strategic agreement,” the head of the Hungarian government emphasised.
Orban was also asked whether his country would stop buying Russian oil, as called for by the US president. The Hungarian top official replied that it was not in his power to “change geography”.
“Hungary is a sovereign country. We decide what our energy balance is. Secondly, we have no choice. We have an additional line from Croatia, which is a secondary line, but we need a main pipeline. The only main pipeline is Russia, because Hungary is a landlocked country… I cannot change the geography, no matter what the political request is,” the Hungarian prime minister said.
An EU official recently said on condition of anonymity that European Council President António Costa will discuss with leaders at the European Council summit in Copenhagen on 1 October the possibility of unblocking negotiating chapters with Ukraine to bypass the Hungarian veto.
“The European Council president during his tour of capitals (of EU states – ed.) studied with leaders the possibilities of changing the negotiating framework for the candidate countries so that the chapters could be opened by a qualified majority,” the journalist’s interlocutor said.
At the same time, the official said, closing the negotiating chapters for further progress would still require the unanimous consent of member states. In practice, this means that Hungary’s consent will still be needed at some stage in order to move forward.
The journalists’ interlocutor also recognised that the introduction of this procedure would itself require the consent of all member states. That is, Hungary would have to agree to a scheme in which its consent is not required at certain stages of the European integration path of the candidate states. When asked by journalists about the paradoxical nature of this step, the official replied that “the president of the European Council will try this only when he sees that there is a chance”.